“Share, But It’s Not Fair” is Paola Pivi’s first solo exhibition in China. Her works focus on the power of images themselves, often emphasizing factors like number and size. Because of this, some media coverage employed terms such as “gimmicky” and “wasteful.” Though such skepticism may be simplistic and crude, it also reflects how contemporary…

From 2008 onward, Song Kun began building a new internal reality, related to life but existing through images. This “realism” is alive in the world of her works. In contrast to real life, she weeds out the underbrush and preserves only what is real and essential, allowing the images to emerge transcendent and clear. Her…

The most eye-catching spectacle of Zhang Ding’s “Buddha Jumps over the Wall” can be found atop two monumental metal columns; a lean man, holding a knife and a gun, on a ritualistic platform such that to see him we have no choice but to look up. The subjects of video-looped “sacrifice” must either directly face…

The word “more” is a word full of hunger. It is also a word many Chinese people associate with the American cigarette brand “More”— or “Mó’ěr,” its transliteration in Chinese. In the 1980s and 90s, these slim cigarettes were all the rage in China. A large contingent of teenage boys became fond of collecting the…

Zhao Yao’s latest solo exhibition, “You Can’t See Me, You Can’t See Me,” is an almost total replication of last year’s “I Am Your Night.” It would be easy to take this exhibition as one-time-only event, a disposable strategy; such an opinion would not be baseless. “You Can’t See Me” is a direct attack on…

The title of this year’s Manifesta, “The Deep of the Modern,” has three meanings. The first is related to the setting of the exhibition: the André Dumont coal mining complex in Waterschei, Genk, Belgi…

THE PERFORMANCE ARTIST Hu Xiangqian (b. 1983) is quick to point out that he does not agree with that classification. More appropriate, he claims, would be “performer” or “actor.” For one, his work is rarely prepared for a live audience, and furthermore, although he readily admits to have never studied, say, Jacques Lecoq or Jerzy…

Seen at the studio or displayed inside a gallery, Zhang Hui’s works always possess the quality of connectivity; each artwork is a branch rooted in and growing from others. A section from one painting becomes the central image for another canvas; one square of color could determine the palette for the next work. These root-and-branch…

First, let us reproduce a scene from the eve of this exhibition, fleshed out, perhaps, with a bit of imagination. It is around midnight and you, an anonymous observer, have just checked into your hotel room, but are too impatient to wait until tomorrow to see the exhibition. So you decide to grant yourself a…

Once known as La Force de l’Art, the Paris Triennale was founded in 2006 by the Ministry of Culture as a showcase for French contemporary art. The previous two editions paraded a dependably bland selection of local wares through the center of the Grand Palais, but the anticipated international acclaim never materialized and La Force…

In 2011, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Shumon Basar, and Joseph Grima together proclaimed the establishment of “Posthastism.” In June 2012, their movement arrived to The Pavilion in Beiing in the form of a one-day exhibition titled “Beijing Posthastism.” Alongside film screenings and live performance, the three curators laid out the terms of “The Posthastist Manifesto,” calling…

IT WAS WHEN we found ourselves tone-deaf and with two left feet that we fell in love with noise. Since his performance at The WALL in June 2011, “Blackwolf Nagashi” has made converts of music fans of all stripes in Taipei. With the release of his debut album Blackwolf Nagashi in Bedroom in May 2012,…

In Taiwan, noise is a surplus of culture. It began with a generation of well-to-do youth, and ended with that same generation. The discussion of the history of noise in Taiwan likely dates back to sometime around 1994, to the experimentation, rebellion, political collision, media-ization, intimate gatherings, and festivals with which that period was saturated….

In China, the development of sound art stretches back 15 years (from another perspective, we could perhaps adjust this figure to 12 years; see below). This, in spite of the fact that sound art still occupies a misunderstood and marginalized position (in this respect, media art isn’t much different). However, there are already enough people,…

In the 1980s, of course, no one talked about art spaces. Sure, artists intervened in the public realm, looking to bend it to their purposes. And of course there were always institutions, and the logic of coopting them for newer, bolder purposes was a motivation that then, as now, loomed large. (Look no further than…

A particular and much remarked upon characteristic of the Chinese art scene is the hyper-commercialized, gallery-based system. By and large an import from the West, the Chinese gallery system over the last ten years has swiftly matured, serving as an important point of connection between Chinese artists and the outside art worlds. For better or…

[portfolio_slideshow timeout=7000 exclude=”5167,5171,5503″] A BRIEF HISTORY OF SPACE Art spaces in China have evolved the hard way, through a long process of selection and replacement. We look at some of the places and people who have made this happen. BACK IN THE DAY: ALTERNATIVE SPACES IN THE EARLY YEARS LEAP chats with some of the…

The Chinese name for the material consists of the characters for “cliff” and “color.” The Japanese call this material iwae and the Taiwanese call it jiaocai. By any name, its is a compelling story of an ancient skill, its transmission out of and back to China, and its somewhat awkward attempt to find a place in art today.

Chen Xiaoyun’s enigmatic videos have defied critical interpretation for the better part of a decade, and inspired a younger generation of artists to veer experimental. A recent solo show at the Beijing branch of ShanghART Gallery showed him to be refining his concerns even further, externalizing an internal hysteria that runs just below the surface of Chinese society.

The little town of Jincheng is built around a paper mill. The mill, erected in 1939, has survived many periods—from the Japanese occupation to the civil war to the Cultural Revolution. It was first called Jinzhou’s “Barbu” Co. Ltd. and then went through a string of names as a state-run Jinzhou paper mill, before finally ending on its current name:…